Study On The Impact Of Natural Resource Dependence On Relative Poverty Of Farmers

In 2020,China has successfully eliminated absolute poverty and achieved a comprehensive victory in the battle against poverty.However,the elimination of absolute poverty under current standards does not mean the termination of poverty alleviation.Poverty governance should attach importance not only to “poverty”,but also to “plight”.It is necessary to precisely describe the connotation of poverty from the dimensions of development and environment.In October 2019,the Fourth Plenary Session of the 19 th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed to “resolutely win the battle against poverty,consolidate the achievements of poverty alleviation,and establish a long-term mechanism for solving relative poverty”.In 2020,“solid promotion of common prosperity” was highlighted for the purpose of improving people’s quality of life on the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19 th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.The inherent requirement of common prosperity is to encourage some people to get rich first and help others catch up later,in which others refer to the relatively poor population.In 2022,the No.1 central document of the Central Committee further emphasized the need to “resolutely hold the bottom line to prevent large-scale returning to poverty ”,and put forward strategic directions such as improving the monitoring and assistance mechanism and continuously increasing population income in poverty relief areas.Summarily,the connotation of poverty in the new era has changed from subsistence poverty to development poverty,and the goal of poverty alleviation has changed from “two assurances and three guarantees” to alleviating relative poverty.As is well-known,rural areas are the “main battlefield” where poverty occurs.Although rural households have been completely lifted out of absolute poverty in 2020,the endogenous development momentum of Chinese rural households is still insufficient.Especially when external assistance resources are gradually withdrawn,some rural households with “welfare dependence” are prone to “livelihood fracture”,which causes secondary poor.This is the reason that rural households face more situationsof relative poverty and multidimensional relative poverty.As an important guarantee for farmers’ livelihood,natural capital plays a critical role in maintaining their livelihood and resisting risks.However,farmers who rely on natural capital for traditional agricultural operations often experience slower income growth than part-time and non-agricultural groups due to limited increasing room in agricultural income and low marginal return on labor input.Especially in the dual economic structure,the income of migrant workers far exceeds the income of traditional agricultural breeding.In contrast,farmers who rely on natural resources are easy to fall into relative poverty under the constraints of ecological environment and the narrowing of agricultural benefits.In this context,why do most farmers still adopt the livelihood strategy of part-time employment? Will farmers fall into the trap of relying on natural resources? Will dependence on natural resources lead farmers to fall into relative income poverty? Will the dependence on natural resources aggravate the poverty vulnerability of farmers? Will dependence on natural resources lead farmers to multi-dimensional relative poverty? What is the mechanism and mitigation path between natural resource dependence and farmers’ relative poverty? To answer these questions,careful theoretical analysis and rigorous empirical research are needed.Therefore,based on the analysis of the basic situation of farmers’ relative poverty,this thesis systematically built a theoretical analysis framework of the impact of natural resource dependence on farmers’ relative poverty,verified the existence of natural resource dependence trap and the influencing factors of farmers’ natural resource dependence from the farmers’ level.The mechanism of natural resource dependence on Farmers’ relative income poverty,poverty vulnerability and multidimensional relative poverty were analyzed.Based on relevant data,empirical research was carried out on six topics: the trap of natural resource dependence,the influencing factors of natural resource dependence,natural resource dependence and relative poverty of farmers’ income,natural resource dependence and vulnerability of farmers’ poverty,natural resource dependence and multidimensional relative poverty of farmers,and the mechanism of natural resource dependence and relative poverty of farmers.This provides empirical evidence for farmers’ livelihood strategy transformation and getting rid of relative poverty in order to realize common prosperity in urban and rural areas.The research content of this thesis mainly includes following aspects:The first part introduces the research questions by emphazing research significance and clarifying the research purposes and contents.the research ideas and framework are put forward and research methods and data adopted in this thesis are explained.This part finally summarizes possible innovations and deficiencies in this thesis.The second part defines concepts such as household,relative poverty,natural resource dependence,expounds the theoretical basis involved in this thesis,such as capacity poverty theory,resource dependence theory,relative deprivation theory,etc.The third part analyzes the current situation of farmers’ relative poverty.Firstly,the evaluation index of relative poverty of farmers is constructed,and the relative poverty degree of farmers is evaluated based on income relative poverty line,poverty vulnerability and multidimensional relative poverty.On this basis,it analyzes the relative poverty of household income and poverty vulnerability,the incidence of poverty of various indicators of multidimensional relative poverty,the analysis of multidimensional relative poverty index,and the contribution rate of multidimensional relative poverty index.The fourth part systematically constructs the theoretical analysis framework of the trap of farmers’ natural resource dependence and the impact of farmers’ natural resource dependence on relative poverty.It also explains the theoretical basis for the existence of natural resource dependence trap from the perspective of farmers,and analyzes the impact mechanism of natural resource dependence on farmers’ income relative poverty,poverty vulnerability and multidimensional relative poverty.Base on above analysis,the mechanism of natural resource dependence on Farmers’ relative poverty is discussed from three aspects: expanding scale operation,productive investment and socialized service.The fifth part,based on the theoretical analysis of natural resource dependence traps,verifies whether farmers have natural resource dependence traps and the influencing factors of natural resource dependence by using China Family Panel Studies(CFPS)in 2014,2016 and 2018.The sixth part analyzes the impact of natural resource dependence on the relative poverty of farmers based on the perspectives of relative income poverty,poverty vulnerability and multi-dimensional relative poverty.The seventh part is based on the perspective of "poverty" and "plight",using the threshold effect model,mediation effect model,and moderation effect model to analyze the impact of natural resource dependence on the relative poverty and multi-dimensional relative poverty of farmers’ income.Through systematic research,the main conclusions are as follows:First,significant regional differences exist in relative poverty of rural households.In terms of income,relative poverty of rural households deteriorated in incidence,intensity and depth,and the incidence in the plains has increased the most.When it comes to poverty vulnerability of farmers,it dropped significantly during the investigation period,it was higher in plain areas.In terms of multi-dimensional relative poverty,the incidence of income poverty,medical insurance,and the value of durable goods is increasing year by year.while the results also indicate yearly increases in multi-dimensional relative poverty-stricken households,the overall poverty deprivation share,the incidence of poverty,the average poverty deprivation share,and the multi-dimensional relative poverty indicators.During investigation period,the index contribution rates of farmers’ income poverty,medical insurance,and durable goods value increased significantly when k is in1～4 dimension.Second,farmers have not fallen into the trap of dependence on natural resources.According to the semi-parametric model,it is estimated that the natural resource dependence level of farmers is about 23%.Using fixed effects model and quantile regression to explore the influencing factors of natural resource dependence,we found that the gender and age household head,the number of agricultural laborers in the family,and the inflow of land have significant positive impacts on the dependence on natural resources,while the transfer of land has a significant negative impact on the dependence on natural resources.Third,dependence on natural resources will lead farmers into relative poverty of income and expenditure.Based on the relative poverty line of income and the poverty vulnerability of consumption to explore the impact of natural resource dependence on the relative poverty of farmers’ income and expenditure,it is found that natural resource dependence positively affects the relative poverty of farmers’ income and poverty vulnerability.Fourth,dependence on natural resources leads farmers into multidimensional relative poverty.By combining static and dynamic perspectives,it is found that natural resource dependence has a significant positive impact on farmers’ multidimensional relative poverty status,multidimensional relative poverty,multidimensional relative poverty process and dynamic results in multidimensional relative poverty.Fifth,natural resource dependence has double threshold effects on the relative poverty of farmers’ income,which are 0.076 and 0.286 respectively.When dependence on natural resources exceeds 0.286,natural resource dependence has a significant negative impact on the relative poverty of farmers’ income.From the perspective of multidimensional relative poverty,it is found that natural resource dependence has double threshold effects on multidimensional relative poverty of farmers,with thresholds of 0.083 and 0.290 respectively.When natural resource dependence of farmers exceeds 0.290,natural resource dependence has a significant negative impact on multidimensional relative poverty of farmers.Sixthly,expanding scale operation is conducive to help natural resource dependent farmers out of relative poverty.From the perspective of relative income poverty and multidimensional relative poverty,expanding scale operation effectively regulates the positive effect of natural resource dependence on farmers’ relative poverty,which means farmers can alleviate the relative poverty caused by natural resource dependence by expanding scale operation.Seventh,productive investment and socialized services are the intermediary variables in affect of natural resource dependence on relative poverty.Liquidity investment and fixed investment exert a masking effect in dependence on natural resources,the relative poverty of farmers’ income and the multidimensional relative poverty.Thus,liquidity investment and fixed investment are conducive to alleviating the positive impact of natural resource dependence on the relative poverty of farmers’ income.Based on the intermediary effect test of socialized services,it is found that socialized services exert a masking effect in dependence on natural resources and the relative poverty of farmers’ income.This means socialized services can effectively alleviate the positive effect of natural resources dependence on the relative poverty of farmers’ income.The intermediary effect of socialized services is not significant in the dependence on natural resources and the multidimensional relative poverty of farmers.On the basis of drawing lessons from relevant research results at home and abroad,this study have evident focus and is innovative as follows:Firstly,verify whether farmers have natural resource dependence trap.At present,most literatures examine the resource "curse" caused by natural resource dependence at the regional level,and few literatures verify whether farmers’ natural resource dependence guarantees their income or causes them to fall into relative poverty.This thesis adopts CFPS2014,2016 and 2018 tracking survey data.Firstly,the non-parametric model is used to verify the existence of farmers’ natural resource dependence trap.Secondly,the parametric model is used to investigate the influencing factors of farmers’ natural resource dependence.Secondly,it systematically constructs the theoretical analysis framework of natural resource dependence on relative poverty of farmers,explains the farmers’ element alignment between the two sectors by maximizing economic benefits.It also clarifies the impact mechanism of natural resource dependence on relative poverty of farmers.According to the theoretical analysis,the threshold effect of natural resource dependence on farmers’ relative poverty is empirically tested,and the reasonable degree of natural resource dependence of farmers is determined by the threshold effect model.Then the moderating effect of expanding scale operation on the relationship between natural resource dependence and relative poverty of farmers is empirically tested.Finally,the role of socialization service and agricultural productive investment on the relationship between natural resource dependence and relative poverty is analyzed by mediating effect model.Thirdly,as perspective innovations,this thesis analyzes the relative poverty among tracking farmer samples from income relative poverty,vulnerability poverty and multidimensional relative poverty.Among them,multidimensional relative poverty establishes dimension index by combining absolute and relative perspectives,mainly including income and expenditure,opportunity,health and life four dimensions.Some variables are measured by means of median and mean,which can be effectively adjusted automatically according to the overall level of social and economic development,overcoming the limitation of single and fixed indicators in measuring poverty of farmers in the past.Secondly,from the perspective of multidimensional relative poverty,this thesis not only analyzes the impact of natural resource dependence on multidimensional relative poverty of farmers from the static level.The dynamic perspective is also used to examine the impact of natural resource dependence on the duration and dynamic results of multidimensional relative poverty of farmers.